Glitterbug – Privilege (c.sides007 – Kompakt)
What a celebration: the glitterbug Till Rohmann was busy contriving in his studio for a year long, bringing in the sounds of Norway, India, China and Israel, melding field recordings from his long travels. This he tells us himself in the booklet of this marvelous double CD Album. During long periods of touring, Rohmann critically reflects on arriving in places where people live a less fortunate life, a notion that deeply influenced his music, and a circumstance the anthropologist Ghassan Hage dubbed as ‘Stuckedness’. But Glitterbug can’t be held back, his tracks only have one anchor, and that is the introverted version of Techno (just listen to “Swirl” and directly after to “Blue Rifts”). It may sound a bit pathetic, but when one listens to Glitterbug’s music, it feels like listening to a better world, a utopia without words.

Again, I am speechless, and feel so fortunate that my music is listened to by people that are able to relate to what I do. Endless thanks to Rene Passet and the DJ Broadcast team for all their amazing support over the past few years!!!

English translation by the author of the review:
Double albums are scarce. Real double albums that is. Not the ones that slip in a bonus dvd or a disk with crappy remixes. No, we mean the whole nine yards. Or in this case: 140 minutes of new music. Even for German beat innovator Till Rohmann better known as Glitterbug that means quite a challenge. With such a distance in time the producer from Cologne understands he has to give his drumcomputers some rope now and then. Just to keep the listener aboard. Rest assured, Privilege may be a long trip, it doesn’t feel that way. Like the sparkling Glitterbug debut Supershelter (2008) the new album offers a wide range of crystal clear electronic melancholica. But it’s by no means a carbon copy. Most tracks on Privilege make wider circles around dancefloors and only occasionally hit the hands-in-the-air area. It’s an album that’s all about the mood and the mind. Float, for instance, would be the perfect soundtrack for a swim in the Dead Sea, where high salt levels and a lurking bassline keep you above sealevel.
When Glitterbug does crank up his four cylinders, it is more than a reminder of his sensational live sets we’ve seen him play in recent years. Privilege works on many levels. A strong, extensive return. 5/5 (Rene Passet)

The Cologne based producer Till Rohmann aka Glitterbug mimes the ferryman. A piece of wood is thrown into the water, floats unstoppably, and the shore, and everything else beyond, immediately becomes blurry. This is how one feels with this record. You are picked up in the beginning, and from there everything happens on its own. Until the last sounds of this 20 track long journey become silent and one is spit out in their private little listening room again.

‘Privilege’ is a concept album, but that is nothing that the listener needs to bare in mind with all this floating and being floated. One may suspect this already, but once listening you get the final confirmation: this doesn’t have anything to do with emotionless, cold dance music- these are highly sensitive tracks, that fulfill their destiny both in all of its epic length at home as well as melted out of the greater context as single tracks in the club.

What remains is an album that over time only continues to grow and is thus destined for nothing less than eternity.

***
Translation to English:Glitterbug- Privilege
Review in Groove 124, May / June 2010
Techno made him a cosmopolitan. ‘Privilege’, Till Rohmann’s second album as Glitterbug, documents this development with a critical perspective on the traveling circus of electronic dance music. From a back yard studio in Cologne, through organizing the c.sides Festival Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to the clubs of the world, is a long path. Till Rohmann managed to sustain his attentiveness and receptive consciousness along it.

It can’t be said enough often: Techno- and House tracks are very specific. They have both a history and a meaning, that change if a track is played in a draught northern Norwegian warehouse or in front of the lucky golden youth of New Delhi.

And exactly that happens in ‘Privilege': The chilly melancholy of classic Detroit techno embarks on a 140 minute long journey, encountering ambient, field recordings, chamber music and non-european musical worlds, warmed by dub and refreshed by Gamelan, yet always finds its way back to its source, altered and new, yet completely distinctive. A slightly muffled euphoric cornucopia. The tracks’ consistency and their subtle depths are some of the elements that substantiate that the enthusiasm regarding Rohmann’s first album ‘Supershelter’ was no hype. This is music for the long way ahead. Music that remains.

Amidst the possibly most stressful period prior to the release of ‘Privilege’ in four weeks, i thought to share a few updates.

I have been awfully busy with remixing, and, even more importantly, mixing endless podcasts for some of the large platforms out there. Watch out for some nice surprises… mixing the podcasts was an especially wonderful thing, since I have been mostly listening to ‘Privilege’ while finalizing the album, and to endless rehearsals for the new show that we’ll start touring with in May. So going through endless promos and fishing for exciting new music was an amazing treat after all that Glitterbug music…

In the meanwhile, the vinyl edition of ‘Privilege’ came in:

It’s a hand numbered, strictly limited (to 500 copies) double vinyl. No. 1-360 have the beautiful CD booklet as part of the package. The vinyl edition has a bonus track that won’t be available digitally or elsewhere, and since we could not fit the whole 20 tracks / 2,5 hrs of music of the CD on vinyl, everybody that purchases the vinyl (and sends us a picture of the hand written number and of the vinyl in a beautiful surrounding of their choice) will receive a download link to the whole CD album.

We have many great shows in the queue for this summer (among them Spot Festival/ Denmark, Off Centre Festival Amsterdam, c/o pop Cologne, MIGZ Festival Moscow, and Oslo Live Festival), so make sure to check the dates section every once in a while and come visit us in one of our shows!